I told you back on May 3rd that Shari Redstone wanted to sell her family company to another family.
Now CNBC reports the deal is ready to be signed. Redstone will receive $8 billion from David Ellison and his company, Skydance. Ellison is the son of Larry Ellison, the billionaire who created Oracle.
The deal isn’t just for Paramount Pictures, but for a stunning number of media holdings including CBS, MTV Networks, Showtime, Paramount channel and network, and dozens more media entities. Ellison is backed by Henry Kravis’s KKR Holdings, which last year bought publisher Simon and Schuster from Redstone for $1.62 billion. Maybe down the line they’ll all be reunited. Stranger things have happened.
In a way, it’s good news. Since her father, Sumner Redstone, died, Shari has wanted to get out. Now she’s accomplished that and at the same time kept the company together. Sony and Apollo Management offered a stunning $26 billion, but they want to sell it off for parts.
Sumner Redstone bought Paramount etc from Gulf and Western in 1994. He died in 2020 at age 97.
More to come…
